Frosti Gíslason and Smári McCarthy are going to work together on a final project for the Fab Academy version of MAS863.08, on a project that encompasses 3D modeling, electronics and HCI (human/computer interaction), while mixing it in with the cultural history of our home town.
Background
Vestmannaeyjar is an archipelago of 15 islands off the south coast of Iceland. In 1973 a volcanic eruption crushed roughly 400 houses in the town.
In 2005 Frosti and Smári started a Wiki-based Cyclopædia about the islands that now counts roughly 4000 articles and 30000 images, making Vestmannaeyjar probably one of the best documented places on the Internet on a square-meter basis. We would now like to bridge the gap between the digital version of this cyclopædia and the physical world.
Goal
We want to make a 3x1.5 meter scale model of that part of the town that was crushed by the lava flow in 1973. The model should be connected to a computer screen that displays information related to places that people press on the model; this could either be accomplished by piezoelectric sensors or by pushbuttons concealed underneath models of buildings.
Using height map data from the islands we're going to make a model out of some tufty material (fine grained polystyrine?) using the Shopbot, and then do electronics design using the Modela (for the base computation module) and CAMM (for wiring inside the model).
